This Little Light
by Hunsdon
Summary: "He's lost. It's her mother's case, and everything is lost. He's falling. That's what it feels like from that moment on, and it's such a long way." A two-shot AU insert for Always (4 x 23). COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

Title: This Little Light, Ch. 1

WC: ~1500, this chapter

Summary: "He's lost. It's her mother's case, and everything is lost. He's falling. That's what it feels like from that moment on, and it's such a long way."

A/N: This is just two chapters. It's sort of an AU for "Always," and it's set during that episode. I started it a long time ago, and didn't know where to take it. It's not something that really resolves, which will probably frustrate some, but the story ends where it wants to end.

* * *

><p>He's lost the minute Esposito reads off the address. The minute after, maybe. He buys that for himself. He asks. He hears himself ask, and that must be denial.<p>

_What __– __what__'__s at 299 First Avenue?_

He knows well enough, though. He shapes the words with his mouth even as the image flares, clear and searing in his mind. His own hand drawing pen over paper. An envelope, rough and thick, that drinks in the ink. He remembers the feel of it. The care he took with each number, each letter because all he had to give Evelyn Montgomery—to give her children—was an empty gesture. A sympathy card.

He knows what's at 299 First Avenue, but he asks anyway. He delays the end a moment more, and she answers.

_Captain Montgomery's house. _

He's lost. It's her mother's case, and everything is lost.

He's falling. That's what it feels like from that moment on, and it's such a long way.

_You wouldn't want to join me, would you? _

_Actually, I'd love to. _

It's such a long way.

* * *

><p>They question Evelyn, and still, it feels like falling. Every other possibility vanishes. Roy Montgomery's photo goes up on the board and everything is lost. He struggles against it—<em>let<em>_'__s not jump to conclusions_—but it's no use at all.

He's falling. Stretching his hands uselessly toward daylight as words come to him from far away. Distorted, distant echoes.

It's over. He has to tell her. She will never forgive him. Three truths he feels in every dying cell of his body as he trails after her from the bullpen to the break room.

He thinks this is where it ends. In this place that's become so familiar. Where they've fought and reconciled. Given and taken from each other. Told hard truths and comforting lies. This place where he fell in love with her. Where he found meaning he didn't know he was looking for.

He thinks this is how it ends, but she lifts her head, and he sees something entirely new in that moment. She looks up, and it's weary. She hasn't quite slipped on the brave face she wears every day.

She lifts her eyes and sees that it's him. She stops in the act of straightening her shoulders and stiffening her spine. She sees it's him.

She catches herself and doesn't bother. More than that. It's _more _than just that. He's falling, but he fights for this. These last few moments of might have been.

It's more than not bothering. She _stops _herself. She sees that it's him and makes a choice. Her hands shake and she doesn't hide them. She looks up at him with wide, pleading eyes. She lets herself ask for something. She lets herself need him.

_Say something reassuring. _

It's thinking out loud, then. His own desperation shaped into words, more hollow than anything. He tells himself she asked. That she needs something—however small—and it's not in him to deny her. But he has his three truths. He's the worst kind of coward, and this is one more sin by silence, even if it works.

_There are thousands of break-ins in New York City every year._

It does work, after a fashion. She counters. Meets his weak objections, and for a moment more, it's like this is any other day. Any other case, and this is how they work. They spill into the back-and-forth between them that's almost effortless, even now.

It works after a fashion. She's talking. Finding her feet, and he wants to cling to this. One last lovely moment, and then it ends.

She looks up at him and he knows before she speaks, it's over. Emptiness cracks open in him. All the things he'll miss filling him with negative space.

_I wake up sometimes and I think to myself, __"__How the hell am I still alive?__"_

Everything stops. Everything. Even his fall. Implacable gravity defeated by the impossible.

She's afraid.

She looks up at him, her eyes as wide as any child startling awake in unfamiliar darkness.

She's been afraid all this time.

* * *

><p>The world turns again, too soon after the revelation for him to grab hold of anything. Not soon enough to afford him the luxury of denial. The soothing fiction that he imagined it.<p>

She's afraid.

He leaves the precinct late. He makes his way home somehow. Through the roar of rush hour and the stillness of the loft. Alexis is distracted. Focused on her own cares. Still, she notices. He's pale and serious. Too prone to startle at the smallest thing. But he says it's just the case they're working. That he can't talk about it. She nods, not quite satisfied, maybe, but drawn back into her own unquiet mind.

His mother isn't so easily put off. She appears in the doorway of the office, light spilling in behind her. She's quiet long enough for him to break the silence. For pain and loss to howl up out of him. She's quiet long enough for that to burn itself out.

"She's afraid. I never thought . . ." His voice all but disappears. There's nothing in him to sustain it. "She's been afraid all this time."

She steps to his side, her fingers cool at the back of his neck. There's no one but himself to blame, though she has the kindness not to say so. The grace to simply listen to the broken echo of her own words from so many months ago.

"I have to tell her."

"I know." She stands tall beside him and rests his head against her hip. Pours what strength she can into him. "I know, darling."

* * *

><p>The street outside the precinct is quiet. The buzz of a dying streetlamp dances along every nerve and drives him up the few steps and inside long before he's gathered up his courage. It's hopeless, anyway. Courage in the end.<p>

The uniform behind the desk nods and hits the buzzer for the safety glass door. He's all forward momentum and fear, pacing the footprint of the elevator what feels like a thousand times as it grinds slowly to the fourth floor. The ding as the doors slide open is deafening in the exit-sign glow of the empty bullpen.

The empty bullpen.

He turns in a circle, bewildered. He drifts to the murder board and raises his fingers to the aluminum housing of the snap-on lamps. It's cool to the touch, and there's an awful, elated moment when it occurs to him that she might not be here. She might be home.

His hands fall to his sides. He pictures her at rest. Her arms flung wide against cool white sheets with the sounds of late spring drifting in her window. He pictures her in dreamless sleep, not afraid. _Not afraid,_ and he almost weeps with relief.

The moment isn't for him, though. Relief isn't for him.

His eyes fall on the glass above the break room wall. On the closed door and the single light burning. He leaves the bullpen, his fingers curling at the edge of the murder board as though he can hold on. As though he can stay in this fantasy world where she's at rest. Where he isn't falling.

He eases the door open as quietly as he can, but the world doesn't behave as it ought. It's jarring and unpredictable. The creak of the hinge sings loud, while the dark swallows the collision of the chair leg and table as he knocks against it. A dull thud where there should be cacophony. He gains his footing as he approaches the sagging couch.

She's there, of course. She's curled tight on her side with her knees drawn up. Her hands are fisted around the blazer that's slipping off shoulders curved high under her chin. He sees her shoes toppled on the floor. She's kept them within reach, as if slipping them off was an indulgence. A compromise.

She's asleep, just barely. Her eyes move restlessly beneath lids that are dark with exhaustion. Her shoulders twist and her knuckles go pale in their stranglehold on the fabric. One foot kicks out. She makes a soft cry of distress—of _fear_—then curls tighter in on herself. Her brow furrows and when she turns her face up from the cushions to drag in air, he sees tears clinging to her lashes.

He stands above her, frozen. She's beautiful, and there's nothing in this world or any other that could bring him to wake her, however far this is from the fantasy of a moment ago. There's no burden or responsibility or debt, however deeply felt, that could bring him to that.

He folds in on himself. He falls at last. There's pain somewhere. His knees meet hard tile. He's exhausted. His body hurts in the end, but he slides to the floor, a shattered heap at her side. He'll keep watch while she sleeps, even it's just barely. He'll keep watch and know a little while longer.

She's afraid.

* * *

><p>AN: Second chapter just needs editing. Should be up in a bit. Thank you for reading.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: This Little Light, Ch. 2

WC: ~1600, this chapter; ~3100 total

Summary: "He's explaining. He's telling her things about time and space. Recent events. He's explaining everything but why he's there. How that came to be and how it is that he can be there and gone. He is, though. There and gone."

* * *

><p>She wakes with a start. Her eyes are wide and staring. Things she knows arrive too quickly for her to understand. That the terrible sound that woke her came from somewhere dark inside her. That she's not in her bed. That she's not alone. Her mouth opens again. Her body jerks. She lashes out blindly.<p>

"Kate. It's ok."

The couch dips with the weight of a fist that's not hers. There's warm breath fanning over her cheek and fingers hovering just above her skin. There's a scent as familiar and soothing as the voice that winds around her. Calm that lets her eyes slips her eyes closed. That lets her draw in air. Deep, even in and out that unknots her shoulders and fingers.

"Castle?" She manages to haul herself up on one elbow.

It brings her close to him—practically nose to nose. His eyes are wide in the darkness. A spark leaps from her to him and back again. He looks at her with such love, naked and raw, that her breath stops all over again. She thinks he'll kiss her. That his hand will come to rest on her skin. In her hair. She thinks he'll reach for her—_finally _reach for her—and draw her close.

She wants that. She wants him to whisper that he loves her against her lips. She wants to tell him that she knows. That she's been fighting for him—fighting her way toward _them__—_for all these months, and she can't remember any more why she thought she needed to do that alone.

She wants to reach for him, but he's gone just like that. He sits back on his heels and plants his palms on his thighs.

"It's late. You're at the precinct. You were . . . dreaming." He looks away. Down at the floor and up at the blinds. "But it's ok. You're safe."

He's explaining. He's telling her things about time and space. Recent events. He's explaining everything but why he's there. How that came to be, and how it is that he can be there and gone. He is, though. There and gone.

"Castle." She pushes up further. Her voice startles him. His eyes snap back to hers, and she sees it now. Something awful there. Something terrified and hopeless. She does reach for him, then. She swings her feet clumsily to the floor. Her fingers clutch at his shoulders. "Castle, what happened?"

A thousand terrible possibilities rise up in her. Ryan or Esposito. Her dad. Another hole ripped in her life while she slept. She tastes something sour at the back of her throat and feels the weight of Montgomery's lifeless body in her arms. She's wild and furious. Black at the edges of her vision at the thought of another thing taken by this voracious thing that drives her.

"Nothing." He captures her hands. He stills her, though it tears something like a sob from him to touch her. "Kate, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Nothing's . . . there's nothing. Everyone is fine. There's nothing . . . I'm sorry."

"Castle." She tugs at his hands.

She means to pull him up with her. Up from the hard floor and on to the couch. She means to pull him closer, but his fingers fly open like her skin burns his. He rears back, spine straight and eyes wide. Fearful.

"I'm sorry," he says again. A hoarse whisper. "I didn't mean . . . I didn't mean to scare you. It's late. There's nothing. As far as I know . . ." He looks up at her, helplessly. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"Castle." She lays a hand on his shoulder carefully. Deliberately. "Please . . ."

His head bows at the contact. His shoulders rise and fall, a shuddering sigh that does nothing to settle the sick feeling in her stomach. He nods down at the floor. Makes his mind up to something. "Kate. There's . . . I have to tell you something."

* * *

><p>He sits by her side. She gets him to agree to that much. His knees and hers angling toward one another, though he's careful about the space between them. He's <em>so <em>careful that she feels hope pouring out of her like an hourglass trickling down.

"Will you listen?" He looks up at her. A swift glance that darts away again. Shy and startled by the way the air comes alive between them, even now, when their eyes meet. It's the first echo of him—the man she knows—since that far-away-feeling moment when she thought he might reach for her. "I don't have any right to . . . but will you please listen?"

Strange, hollow things rise up in her throat. Jibes. Anything she might say to lighten this. But she looks at the frayed edge of couch cushion between them, his knees and hers and the unnatural stillness of his hands. The defeat in him. She doesn't know what it can be. How it can be more awful than this, right now, but she wants it out. She swallows hard. "I'll listen."

He nods. There's no relief in it. None at all. Her fingers twitch. Her whole body aches toward him, but she keeps to herself. She keeps the space between them. She doesn't understand how this can hurt less, but she keeps to herself.

"I love you."

She jerks forward. Her whole body, like she's falling. Her heart pounds, painful and hard, and somewhere there's joy. There's joy in hearing it, even though her scars are searing hot, and it's the last thing in the world she dreamed he'd say right now. He's miserable. He's _so _miserable, and she doesn't understand.

"I know you know that." He looks at her sidelong. There's joy in him, too. Buried deep under awful things, but there's a spark of joy. A long, shaking breath he takes and the merest fraction of a smile that comes and goes. "Not just because it's . . . obvious."

She laughs. It's a rusty, painful sound. It drags up her ribs. It hurts. "Obvious." Her lips open and close on the word, but there's no sound. She knows what's next. She knows.

"I know you've known since . . ." He trails off. His hand flutters in front of his own chest. The exact spot, as though he's seen the scar a hundred times. As though he knows every awful twist and contour. How it throbs and aches and keeps her from rest. How unbearable a sight it is. "I know you heard me."

"Castle." She manages sound at last. His name, though there's nothing that goes after it. Everything after it is gaping and black. The past few weeks rise up. Punishing memories of cold and distance. Unkindness. Realization dawning, cruel and sudden. She tumbles toward it. "Castle . . . I . . . "

There's nothing, though. She reaches out blindly and his hands are there at last, holding hers tight. He drops his forehead against her knuckles.

"Kate." He whispers her name, over and over, like he's steadying himself. He lifts his lips to just the tips of her fingers for a moment that's hardly there. He lets go. He sets her hands gently back in her lap and lets go. He swipes a palm across his eyes.

"I'm not making . . . there's no excuse. And I didn't even know until . . . I wondered. While you were gone, I thought . . . I was _so_ angry. But then you came back." He looks up at her, and there's a glimpse of joy again. The hitch of breath and a memory of him in the sun, his swing swaying gently closer to hers. But the words come again, and repetition drives it away. No joy this time. "You came back, and I thought I understood."

The silence stretches out. She wants to end it. To say anything at all, but there's too much misery here. Beyond the sin of her own silence, whatever this is. There's too much weight, and she said she'd listen. She said she would, and she won't make herself a liar twice over.

"I thought you weren't ready. That you just needed time, and I could give . . . even if you never loved me, I wanted to give you . . . time. And then, when I found out you knew, and I thought . . . " He swallows desperately. Shakes his head and stares hard at his knees like he's angry. Like he's _so _ angry at himself and her and everything, but it breaks apart. It leaves another wash of agony behind.

"It doesn't matter now." His voice breaks. The next words come slowly. More painfully than ever. "I thought I was giving you time. But I didn't understand. I didn't know you were afraid, Kate. All this time, I never realized what it would be like to think—to believe that any minute . . ."

Tears spill over his lashes and she can't bear it. Space and silence and all the things they never say. She can't bear this misery.

"Tell me." She reaches for him. She struggles up on her knees and clutches at his shoulders. She's angry and terrified and she feels him falling away. She buries her face against his chest. "God, Castle, please just _tell me_."

His arms come around her at last. His hands at her back and his fingers in her hair. His lips at her ear. He holds her in the end. He holds her tight like sheer force of will can make it last. Like he knows it won't.

"It's about Montgomery, Kate. Why he died." He pulls back just enough to look at her. To study her face like it's the memory he'll carry with him.

She's cold inside and strangely still. The words don't mean anything yet. Not yet, and she wants to stop him. She wants to lay her fingers across his lips and beg him to tell her again, just once more before they do. But she's cold inside and strangely still. She holds on. She listens.

"It's about why you're still alive."

* * *

><p>AN: As I said in my note to the first chapter, I know this is very unresolved, and I don't really know why my mind snagged on this. It just strikes me as heartbreaking when Kate says she wakes up wondering why she's still alive, while Castle has been so wrapped up in the idea that he's keeping her safe, that part of the cost never occurred to him. But it's the stuff of tragedy, and I don't know how much difference having the conversation in another time and place might have made. In any case, thank you for reading.


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